Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music

by Gerri Hirshey

Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music is a unique oral history. Here are the recollections of many of the giants of soul—Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Mary Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Screaming Jay Hawkins, and Wilson Pickett. These and other interviews, many of them exclusive, add up to a brilliant anecdotal portrait of the music and the life. Gerri Hirshey is the author of We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock; she has also written for Rolling Stone and the New York Times.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Reference, American History, Art

384 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1984

About the author

Gerri Hirshey is a journalist and author with 25 years of experience in newspapers, magazines and book publishing. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, and many more.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The blues are my life's bedrock. I came to love soul through loving the blues. I came to love gospel through loving soul. The author tells some of the story in the words of the artists themselves. AND her writing is sublime. Read her description of Aretha Franklin doing sound checks and rehearsing with her band: "Ten feet from the epicenter, I felt the first note square in the solar plexus. It hummed through every membrane in the room, saturated the gouged acoustic baffling, rising higher, louder, in a blue cloud of Kool smoke, echoing up the sooty airshaft, a Pentacostal crack in the dense, city night. 'Jesus God', the studio watchman whispered. 'Almighty Jesus God.'" Published way back in 1980-something, a few details are dated.....Michael Jackson was still alive for example. The history, the stories told in the voices of famous performers, like Aretha, and James Brown, Otis Reading, Sam Cooke, Martha Reeves, Diana Ross.....I could go on and on.......all add up to a great book.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really, 4 1/2 stars, but in this case it definitely makes sense to round up. What a tremendous way to at least introduce the story of soul music There's no way a single volume could truly cover the history and evolution of soul music but the author has done a tremendous job telling the stories of many of the musicians who were instrumental in that evolution. It's almost like the first third of the book revolves around the artists and producers at Atlantic Records, the second third about those at Motown, and the final third (and the shortest) revolves around those at Stax/Volt and some Muscle Shoals. This allows the author to take advantage of the different locales and players without having to squeeze everything onto a timeline.

And the people interviewed are a truly impressive array of talents everyone should know. I was particularly glad to read quotes from Steve Cropper, a vastly underrated guitar player, songwriter, and sometimes producer with Stax/Volt.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bowie Book Club No 8
Witten in 1984, this is such an fascinating page turner. The author interviewed and spent time with the likes of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, James Brown, Isaac Hayes and Dianna Ross, to name but a few. The history of Motown (Berry Gordy), a common history of gospel singing among such big names from the South and the tragicly short-lived lives of others (Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge) constantly sent me off to YouTube to find out more and listen to a heap of wonderful tunes deeply entrenched in history.

[David Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like good music? Sweet Soul Music? The definitive guide to the personalities, stars and outrageous talent that went into creating the soundtrack for the second half of the 20th century and beyond. Gerri Hirshey interviewed all the still-living legends in the early 1980’s while most were still working hard on the circuit. The result is a unique insight into the mindsets and anxieties of such disparate musicians as Screaming Jay Hawkins, James Brown, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Martha Reeves, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, to name just a few. Atlantic Records, Motown and Stax all get full appraisals and there is additional detail about the unheralded session musicians who collaborated on some of the most iconic records ever made. Jerry Wexler and Steve Cropper add colour.
Want to know how that hand-clapping intro to “Baby Love” was done? Well Motown weren’t going to pay 12 people $2.50 an hour to clap so they attached 12 pieces of wood together with wire and springs and jumped up and down on them. Daylight in upon magic.
I’ve made a Spotify playlist of 234 of the songs mentioned with the same title as the book if you’re interested. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t be.

[Ron Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Naw, I didn’t stay for the rest of the show,” he says. “There was some good wrestling on TV. Got home just in time.” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, after finishing as the opening act for The Rolling Stones in Madison Square Garden.

Hershey had the good sense to leave all the important talking to the performers in her history of soul music.

It’s hard to say exactly when soul music began and, of course, it continues to this day. Still, it’s safe to say it flourished in the sixties and took it in the jugular when disco hit the big time.

Hershey does an opening section on the roots of soul music in spirituals and the blues then she divides the rest into City Soul and Country Soul. I sat with the book open on my desk and YouTube running in front of me, so I could listen to the music while reading about it.

The book only covers the music up to 1984, but it is well-researched and written and it gives you a good grounding in the genre, both in terms of the performers and its business side.

[Naomi Krokowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have such respect for Gerri Hirshey: this book is full of great interviews with Soul artists, and Hirshey lets them tell the heartaches and highlights their own ways. Soul music is so wonderful when it's full of feeling, and many of the artists brilliantly turn pain into pleasure. The roster of geniuses she caught twenty or so years after the height of soul music's dominance is impressive: James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, and on and on. Riveted by this book!

[Austin Gustin-Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

A firsthand account of of the history of soul music by those artists who lived it? Yes, please. Gerri Hirshey seems to have had a way of getting these legends to lower their guards and talk about their experiences in the early boom years of soul music. Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Cissy Houston, Diana Ross... they all come alive in candid conversations throughout this wonderful book. A must read by music lovers.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting & dense account of the birth & growth of soul music throughout the mid 20th century. A lot of first-hand interviews, stories & information. Some of the stories have to be read to be believed.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched and well written. A little out of date, but still incredibly engrossing. Loved it.

[John Carlsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fick anledning att läsa en bok om soulmusikens historia och framväxt. Jag ska väl säga att jag knappast är konnässör i genren men att jag under läsningens gång ser en del låttitlar och genast tänker ”ja just det, det är ju en riktigt bra låt!”.

Vi får en genomgång av hur musikerna växer upp med både blues och gospel under 40- och 50-talen, hur bolagen Motown och Stax blir synonymt med kvalitativ soul, hur rasismen och negligerandet av den vita musikvärlden alltid är närvarande (men också hur artister som Beatles, Bob Dylan och Rolling Stones uttrycker sin uppskattning och framhåller artisterna för sin egen publik).

Boken är uppbyggd som en ”oral history” och det är idel kända namn som kommer till tals: Screamin Jay Hawkins, Diana Ross, Martha Reeves, James Brown och Wilson Pickett för att bara nämna några.

Boken utkom 1984 men innehållet känns inte föråldrat (med reservation för att nya fakta kan ha tillkommit) och den är skriven på ett medryckande sätt. Läsningen manar till lyssning av medverkande artister!

[Craig Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An oldie, but definitely a goodie.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3

[MaryAlice · Rating 1 out of 5]

My notepad note on this book says "I did not finish this book."

Yet I have a list of songs, artists, and other notes. Or, I must have liked something about it, but not enough to keep reading?

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent oral history covering the origins of soul and its journey through the '60s and '70s. The age of the book (it was first published in 1984) is both its strength and weakness. The interviews cover a wide range of figures instrumental in the the success of soul during those years, and the passing of time and people means this just could not be repeated. However, some of the perspectives have been muddied by subsequent events - see the interview with Michael Jackson... Still, it brings a unique perspective to the time and genre, and the anecdotes and author's opinions make for a strong read. There's no love for disco here!

[Mauberley]

The anecdotal story of modern soul music as told in a series of portraits of some of its greatest practitioners. Sometimes the book reads as though it began as the story of Motown Records but the project was abandoned as access to Barry Gordy grew impossible to obtain. Nonetheless, the author's unabashed love of the music is one of her greatest strengths. Do you like soul music? Sweet soul music? This is a book for you.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hirshey's book is more a series of character profiles than a linear history, as she interviews soul luminaries and lesser lights to construct her historical edifice. Some of the chapters get a bit aimless as she wanders from musician to musician without a clear narrative, but at the end I wanted more so could hardly dock the point. Worth it for any listener or fan of modern American music.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

favorite

[Christopher Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fine book of the behind the music stories of some of the greatest soul singers of our time

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this sometime before the 1990s picked up, at my grandparents' house, in this paperback edition, and loved it.
Highly recommended.

[Karen]

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